A storm was raging in his breast; all the fierce passions of his nature were aroused; rage, grief, terror and despair, made a hell of his bosom. In passing through the hall, he suddenly dived into the dining-room, poured out and drained a half tumbler of the strong brandy; then he hurried through and out of the front door, to make ready for his flight. These preparations were soon made, and Valentine commenced his journey. The highway leading to M---- was bordered on one side by the hedge of Spanish daggers that skirted the lower cotton-fields of Major Hewitt's plantation, and on the other side by a causeway, that shut off an extensive cypress swamp that formed a portion of Mr. Waring's estate. Avoiding the middle of the road, Valentine leaped over the causeway, and, though he waded half a leg deep in water, he made his way safely under the shelter of the wall and the shadows of the trees. He had waded thus a mile, on his way toward the city, when the sound of a voice, singing a Methodist hymn, and approaching from the opposite direction, arrested his attention. He knew the hymn, and the voice, that, in turn, sang and intoned it, and, by them, recognized, before seeing, Elisha, the colored class-leader of his own congregation, the man who had that morning brought the first news of Fannie's illness. A new, intense anxiety seized him. Elisha came from the direction of the city. "Might he not bring some later intelligence of Fannie?" he inquired of himself, as he hastened to climb the wall of the causeway, and peered through the parasitical vines that clung to the top, to survey the scene. Lying between the dark-hued cypress swamp and the high hedge that shut off the cotton-fields, the road stretched westward, one long, irregular vista of yellow light shining in the last rays of the setting sun; and solitary, except for the lonely figure of the old negro preacher, who, stick and bundle slung across his shoulder, came trudging onward, and beguiling his way with chanting the refrain of a wild, weird revival hymn, in strange keeping with the time and circumstances: "Go, wake him! Go, wake him! Judgment day is coming! Go, wake him! Go, wake him! Before it is too late!" "Hist! Elisha! Elisha!" called Valentine, in a hushed, eager voice. "Who dar?" exclaimed the old negro, starting back so forcibly that the stick and bundle vibrated on his shoulder. "It is I, Elisha! Come here, quickly. How is Fannie, my dear, suffering Fannie? Quickly! You have seen her since morning?" cried Valentine, in a low, vehement tone. "Brudder Walley! I 'clar'; de werry man I lookin' arter!" said the old creature, approaching the causeway. "Tell me! tell me! how is Fannie?" cried Valentine, impatiently. "Ah, chile! we-dem mus' 'mit to de will o' Marster," sighed the old preacher. "For Heaven's sake, be plain! Is she--is she still living?" questioned the youth, in an agony of anxiety.